4 ms·

One of the best pieces of advice/criticism I was told in elementary school, "Only boring people get bored."

by brg 2y ago

aidos 2y ago
That always felt like such a meaningless statement to me.
- BerislavLopac 2y ago
  My take on this would be that, if you can think of various activities to do when you have nothing to do, whether on your own or with others, you can't be bored.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    If you can think of stuff to do but you are trapped doing boring stuff, you'll be bored. boredom at its core is a lack of furfillment and ability to realize it, not a lack of imagination. No point imagining a wonderful summer vacation in Paris when you barely have $1000 in the bank for in case the car breaks down.
    - cableshaft 2y ago
      No, but you can probably get to the local library and check out some books (or movies, or games, or comics) for free. Or go outside and take a walk. Or assuming you have a computer, go online and learn one of hundreds of subjects for free. Or if you have paper and a pencil, doodle or write something. I was 'trapped doing boring stuff' at school all the time growing up, especially in elementary school and junior high which were always way too easy for me, but I would pass the time away during class by either daydreaming, or doodling, or writing poems, or trying to invent a new language, or printing stories in tiny font and reading them, or brainstorming ideas for things to do later, or designing levels to new video games I thought I'd create someday, or drawing out the structure of a web site I wanted to make, and then later when I got a calculator you could code on, I was coding simple games on it.
      - rthrfrd 2y ago
        All you're saying is that your imagination and appetite for experiences should not exceed the means already available to you. Sounds unimaginative and boring to me. What if I said the interesting person is the one that will tolerate being bored doing something boring, in order to be able to do the thing that satisfies their imagination and appetite for interesting experiences? Like you were forced to at school? Unfortunately many people are trapped being bored doing boring things as a means to an end for much longer than just childhood: That doesn't make them boring.
        cableshaft 2y ago
        I'm just saying that being bored is a choice. I could go even more extreme as an example and go back to the year I worked in a factory. I could have been bored out of my mind while sequencing and examining car parts, but instead I let myself daydream and think about things like crazy, and wrote down notes for various thoughts I had and things to do after work when I had a spare moment. In some ways I miss that, as my current job robs a good chunk of my mental energy for the day, also I was a lot more fit back then because I was constantly moving during my job (I don't miss the 90 degree heat with only an industrial fan to cool me off though, nor the fraction of the pay I was making then compared to now). Sometimes people that are bored come across to me like my partner when she says there's nothing she feels like eating out, despite us living in an extremely restaurant rich area (we could go to almost 100 different restaurants and almost two dozen different types of regional cuisines in about a 15 minute drive). Although she's already decided she doesn't ever want to eat at like 20 of them, and there's still at least 50 she's never tried eating at once. Meanwhile I once worked at a place that was far enough away from anything that you had to bring food from home for lunch, except on Fridays, when we'd pool money together to make a big delivery order of wings from a pub 15+ minutes away (lunch was a hard 30 minutes, and you'd get in big trouble if you were late, so no time to go get lunch). Same place as that factory, actually. Our current situation feels luxurious compared to that. They are being overly picky about how they want to spend their time and attention, when there's so many options out there, even cheap or free activities (and even the non-cheap things can at least be saved towards, usually, barring some health reasons that prevent you from doing it in the first place...like it's probably a bad idea for me to go whitewater kayaking at my current fitness level, but if I really wanted to I could lose some weight and build up some muscle and maybe practice doing some kayaking on a calm pond first).
    - big_paps 2y ago
      I think thats a good point. Most things bore me because i am hindered to do the thing i want to do. But the solution still is trying to do your best at the boring things. To be able to do that, one needs some kind of purpose-giving overall philosophy.
  - rthrfrd 2y ago
    Which completely fails to account for the fact that a boring person with great means may use those means to avoid boredom, while an imaginative person with little means may be trapped in boredom because they are forced to use their time to meet basic, boring needs. So it's a shallow and naive statement that ignores externalities either way.
    - antihipocrat 2y ago
      Imagine there is a blackout and both the rich and poor are equally affected. One person decides to go for a walk and notices a few interesting things along the way. Another stays at home feeling bored. I know which person I'd rather converse with, wealth doesn't really matter.
      - rthrfrd 2y ago
        "People can be boring or not regardless of wealth" is orthogonal to the original assertion of "Only boring people get bored": I raised the incredibly common situation where wealth does matter that dispels the original assertion. I don't disagree with your assertion.
        antihipocrat 2y ago
        I don't think you've dispelled the original assertion at all. Your assertion that 'wealth does matter' is as orthogonal to the original as 'wealth doesn't matter', and there are plenty of examples in favour of each position.
        rthrfrd 2y ago
        > I don't think you've dispelled the original assertion at all. I did though. Otherwise what you're saying is that you've never known someone whose imagination and appetite for experiences was not constrained by their wealth. You've never know someone who had to endure boredom doing boring things in order to have a shot at doing the things that did interest them. That would be quite the luxurious and unencumbered circle to inhabit. > Your assertion that 'wealth does matter' is as orthogonal to the original as 'wealth doesn't matter' Re-removing the constraint from my example to make an orthogonal point has nothing to do with why I introduced it in the first place to disprove the original point - that's not really how the logic works. > and there are plenty of examples in favour of each position Yes and I only need one to disprove the original assertion. Thankfully I don't have only one - there are literally millions (billions?) of non-boring people who have been in that situation.
- mapcars 2y ago
  Not just meaningless but contradictory. Because being bored and be boring is the same exact thing, just said in different words. Is there any thing that is boring for every single human being on the planet? Of course no, this means boredom only exists in our minds. So if you say some one is boring - that has nothing to do with them, it only means your mind is bored. Make sure to understand this clearly and not be trapped by language expressiveness and social influence.
johnnyanmac 2y ago
one of the cool things I learned last week (from Inside Out) was the emotion of "Ennui" (pronounced IN-wah). Which can be associated with boredom, but a better meaning is "a lack of fulfillment or dissatisfaction". Perfect descriptor to concisely describe something without dismissing it as "well it's not fun". Boring people don't get bored. frustrated people get bored. Especially in an economy like this.
- globular-toast 2y ago
  It's pronounced more like "on-wee", by the way. It's French.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    Darn. And too late to edit. My apologies. I had that in my head but I was always horrible with "how to enunciate in text" sorts of phrasing.
  - silverquiet 2y ago
    What's funny is that I read the word and would have pronounced it as in-you-eye or something like that, and I had heard it pronounced, but it took me a bit longer than I'd like to admit to realize that it was the same word.
- phito 2y ago
  In french (my native language), s'ennuyer just means that you're bored. But "quelqu'un m'ennuie" means someone is bothering you.
bravetraveler 2y ago
It's funny because the most carbon copy people say this. Their weird backhanded attempts at peer pressure are boring Bored is a normal and necessary experience. Jamming every waking moment with engagement is something I'll never agree with the world on
cjfd 2y ago
One thing of the dutch language is that this statement in echoed by the language itself. The most common way to say 'I am bored' is 'Ik verveel me' which literally means 'I bore myself'.

One of the best pieces of advice/criticism I was told in elementary school, "Only boring people get bored."

by brg 2y ago

One of the best pieces of advice/criticism I was told in elementary school, "Only boring people get bored."

aidos 2y ago

That always felt like such a meaningless statement to me.

BerislavLopac 2y ago
My take on this would be that, if you can think of various activities to do when you have nothing to do, whether on your own or with others, you can't be bored.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  If you can think of stuff to do but you are trapped doing boring stuff, you'll be bored. boredom at its core is a lack of furfillment and ability to realize it, not a lack of imagination. No point imagining a wonderful summer vacation in Paris when you barely have $1000 in the bank for in case the car breaks down.
  - cableshaft 2y ago
    No, but you can probably get to the local library and check out some books (or movies, or games, or comics) for free. Or go outside and take a walk. Or assuming you have a computer, go online and learn one of hundreds of subjects for free. Or if you have paper and a pencil, doodle or write something. I was 'trapped doing boring stuff' at school all the time growing up, especially in elementary school and junior high which were always way too easy for me, but I would pass the time away during class by either daydreaming, or doodling, or writing poems, or trying to invent a new language, or printing stories in tiny font and reading them, or brainstorming ideas for things to do later, or designing levels to new video games I thought I'd create someday, or drawing out the structure of a web site I wanted to make, and then later when I got a calculator you could code on, I was coding simple games on it.
    - rthrfrd 2y ago
      All you're saying is that your imagination and appetite for experiences should not exceed the means already available to you. Sounds unimaginative and boring to me. What if I said the interesting person is the one that will tolerate being bored doing something boring, in order to be able to do the thing that satisfies their imagination and appetite for interesting experiences? Like you were forced to at school? Unfortunately many people are trapped being bored doing boring things as a means to an end for much longer than just childhood: That doesn't make them boring.
      - cableshaft 2y ago
        I'm just saying that being bored is a choice. I could go even more extreme as an example and go back to the year I worked in a factory. I could have been bored out of my mind while sequencing and examining car parts, but instead I let myself daydream and think about things like crazy, and wrote down notes for various thoughts I had and things to do after work when I had a spare moment. In some ways I miss that, as my current job robs a good chunk of my mental energy for the day, also I was a lot more fit back then because I was constantly moving during my job (I don't miss the 90 degree heat with only an industrial fan to cool me off though, nor the fraction of the pay I was making then compared to now). Sometimes people that are bored come across to me like my partner when she says there's nothing she feels like eating out, despite us living in an extremely restaurant rich area (we could go to almost 100 different restaurants and almost two dozen different types of regional cuisines in about a 15 minute drive). Although she's already decided she doesn't ever want to eat at like 20 of them, and there's still at least 50 she's never tried eating at once. Meanwhile I once worked at a place that was far enough away from anything that you had to bring food from home for lunch, except on Fridays, when we'd pool money together to make a big delivery order of wings from a pub 15+ minutes away (lunch was a hard 30 minutes, and you'd get in big trouble if you were late, so no time to go get lunch). Same place as that factory, actually. Our current situation feels luxurious compared to that. They are being overly picky about how they want to spend their time and attention, when there's so many options out there, even cheap or free activities (and even the non-cheap things can at least be saved towards, usually, barring some health reasons that prevent you from doing it in the first place...like it's probably a bad idea for me to go whitewater kayaking at my current fitness level, but if I really wanted to I could lose some weight and build up some muscle and maybe practice doing some kayaking on a calm pond first).
  - big_paps 2y ago
    I think thats a good point. Most things bore me because i am hindered to do the thing i want to do. But the solution still is trying to do your best at the boring things. To be able to do that, one needs some kind of purpose-giving overall philosophy.
- rthrfrd 2y ago
  Which completely fails to account for the fact that a boring person with great means may use those means to avoid boredom, while an imaginative person with little means may be trapped in boredom because they are forced to use their time to meet basic, boring needs. So it's a shallow and naive statement that ignores externalities either way.
  - antihipocrat 2y ago
    Imagine there is a blackout and both the rich and poor are equally affected. One person decides to go for a walk and notices a few interesting things along the way. Another stays at home feeling bored. I know which person I'd rather converse with, wealth doesn't really matter.
    - rthrfrd 2y ago
      "People can be boring or not regardless of wealth" is orthogonal to the original assertion of "Only boring people get bored": I raised the incredibly common situation where wealth does matter that dispels the original assertion. I don't disagree with your assertion.
      - antihipocrat 2y ago
        I don't think you've dispelled the original assertion at all. Your assertion that 'wealth does matter' is as orthogonal to the original as 'wealth doesn't matter', and there are plenty of examples in favour of each position.
        rthrfrd 2y ago
        > I don't think you've dispelled the original assertion at all. I did though. Otherwise what you're saying is that you've never known someone whose imagination and appetite for experiences was not constrained by their wealth. You've never know someone who had to endure boredom doing boring things in order to have a shot at doing the things that did interest them. That would be quite the luxurious and unencumbered circle to inhabit. > Your assertion that 'wealth does matter' is as orthogonal to the original as 'wealth doesn't matter' Re-removing the constraint from my example to make an orthogonal point has nothing to do with why I introduced it in the first place to disprove the original point - that's not really how the logic works. > and there are plenty of examples in favour of each position Yes and I only need one to disprove the original assertion. Thankfully I don't have only one - there are literally millions (billions?) of non-boring people who have been in that situation.
mapcars 2y ago
Not just meaningless but contradictory. Because being bored and be boring is the same exact thing, just said in different words. Is there any thing that is boring for every single human being on the planet? Of course no, this means boredom only exists in our minds. So if you say some one is boring - that has nothing to do with them, it only means your mind is bored. Make sure to understand this clearly and not be trapped by language expressiveness and social influence.

johnnyanmac 2y ago

one of the cool things I learned last week (from Inside Out) was the emotion of "Ennui" (pronounced IN-wah). Which can be associated with boredom, but a better meaning is "a lack of fulfillment or dissatisfaction". Perfect descriptor to concisely describe something without dismissing it as "well it's not fun". Boring people don't get bored. frustrated people get bored. Especially in an economy like this.

globular-toast 2y ago
It's pronounced more like "on-wee", by the way. It's French.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  Darn. And too late to edit. My apologies. I had that in my head but I was always horrible with "how to enunciate in text" sorts of phrasing.
- silverquiet 2y ago
  What's funny is that I read the word and would have pronounced it as in-you-eye or something like that, and I had heard it pronounced, but it took me a bit longer than I'd like to admit to realize that it was the same word.
phito 2y ago
In french (my native language), s'ennuyer just means that you're bored. But "quelqu'un m'ennuie" means someone is bothering you.

bravetraveler 2y ago

It's funny because the most carbon copy people say this. Their weird backhanded attempts at peer pressure are boring Bored is a normal and necessary experience. Jamming every waking moment with engagement is something I'll never agree with the world on

cjfd 2y ago

One thing of the dutch language is that this statement in echoed by the language itself. The most common way to say 'I am bored' is 'Ik verveel me' which literally means 'I bore myself'.